Impact of Mobile and Wireless Technology on Healthcare Delivery services

Modern healthcare delivery services embrace the use of leading edge technologies and new scientific discoveries to enable better cures for diseases and better means to enable early detection of most life-threatening diseases. The healthcare industry is finding itself in a state of turbulence and flux. The major innovations lie with the use of information technologies and particularly, the adoption of mobile and wireless applications in healthcare delivery [1]. Wireless devices are becoming increasingly popular across the healthcare field, enabling caregivers to review patient records and test results, enter diagnosis information during patient visits and consult drug formularies, all without the need for a wired network connection [2]. A pioneering medical-grade, wireless infrastructure supports complete mobility throughout the full continuum of healthcare delivery. It facilitates the accurate collection and the immediate dissemination of patient information to physicians and other healthcare care professionals at the time of clinical decision-making, thereby ensuring timely, safe, and effective patient care. This paper investigates the wireless technologies that can be used for medical applications, and the effectiveness of such wireless solutions in a healthcare environment. It discusses challenges encountered; and concludes by providing recommendations on policies and standards for the use of such technologies within hospitals

Wi-Fi Enabled Healthcare

Focusing on its recent proliferation in hospital systems, Wi-Fi Enabled Healthcare explains how Wi-Fi is transforming clinical work flows and infusing new life into the types of mobile devices being implemented in hospitals. Drawing on first-hand experiences from one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States, it covers the key areas associated with wireless network design, security, and support. Reporting on cutting-edge developments and emerging standards in Wi-Fi technologies, the book explores security implications for each device type. It covers real-time location services and emerging trends in cloud-based wireless architecture. It also outlines several options and design consideration for employee wireless coverage, voice over wireless (including smart phones), mobile medical devices, and wireless guest services. This book presents authoritative insight into the challenges that exist in adding Wi-Fi within a healthcare setting. It explores several solutions in each space along with design considerations and pros and cons. It also supplies an in-depth look at voice over wireless, mobile medical devices, and wireless guest services. The authors provide readers with the technical knowhow required to ensure their systems provide the reliable, end-to-end communications necessary to surmount today’s challenges and capitalize on new opportunities. The shared experience and lessons learned provide essential guidance for large and small healthcare organizations in the United States and around the world. This book is an ideal reference for network design engineers and high-level hospital executives that are thinking about adding or improving upon Wi-Fi in their hospitals or hospital systems

InfoTech Update, Volume 10, Number 5, September/October 2002

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_news/4994/thumbnail.jp

A Proposal for the Use of Wireless Technology in Healthcare

The annual healthcare cost in the United States is a staggering $2.6 trillion USD or over 17$200 billion per year. Enhancements in mobile communication devices and networks make them on par or more advanced than some of the standard instruments used in healthcare today. In addition, these devices are available at much lower costs than traditional healthcare devices. Thus, leveraging these devices and wireless networks could significantly reduce the cost of healthcare delivery and expand coverage. Wireless operators have the distribution channels and marketing capability to reach the majority of the population. Wireless operators are looking to vertical industries like healthcare for future revenue growth due to saturation in the consumer market (greater than 103% penetration). Mobile operators have networks that cover over 97% of the total US population. In addition, they have a large employee base to leverage for m-health trials. With their large employee base, mobile operators have influence over large health insurers such as United Healthcare, Wellpoint, Kaiser and others. Since healthcare insurers and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services influence the industry through reimbursements for services, gaining their acceptance is tantamount to success

A feasibility study for the provision of electronic healthcare tools and services in areas of Greece, Cyprus and Italy

Background: Through this paper, we present the initial steps for the creation of an integrated platform for the provision of a series of eHealth tools and services to both citizens and travelers in isolated areas of thesoutheast Mediterranean, and on board ships travelling across it. The platform was created through an INTERREG IIIB ARCHIMED project called INTERMED. Methods: The support of primary healthcare, home care and the continuous education of physicians are the three major issues that the proposed platform is trying to facilitate. The proposed system is based on state-of-the-art telemedicine systems and is able to provide the following healthcare services: i) Telecollaboration and teleconsultation services between remotely located healthcare providers, ii) telemedicine services in emergencies, iii) home telecare services for "at risk" citizens such as the elderly and patients with chronic diseases, and iv) eLearning services for the continuous training through seminars of both healthcare personnel (physicians, nurses etc) and persons supporting "at risk" citizens. These systems support data transmission over simple phone lines, internet connections, integrated services digital network/digital subscriber lines, satellite links, mobile networks (GPRS/3G), and wireless local area networks. The data corresponds, among others, to voice, vital biosignals, still medical images, video, and data used by eLearning applications. The proposed platform comprises several systems, each supporting different services. These were integrated using a common data storage and exchange scheme in order to achieve system interoperability in terms of software, language and national characteristics. Results: The platform has been installed and evaluated in different rural and urban sites in Greece, Cyprus and Italy. The evaluation was mainly related to technical issues and user satisfaction. The selected sites are, among others, rural health centers, ambulances, homes of "at-risk" citizens, and a ferry. Conclusions: The results proved the functionality and utilization of the platform in various rural places in Greece, Cyprus and Italy. However, further actions are needed to enable the local healthcare systems and the different population groups to be familiarized with, and use in their everyday lives, mature technological solutions for the provision of healthcare services

A high-speed wireless network used for telemedicine

Nowadays, there is growing interest in using telemedicine to provide non-face-to-face healthcare for patients. The emergence and development of WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) technology, which supports high-speed wireless communications within the existing Intranet that covers the healthcare system, makes it possible to provide routine body check-ups for patients who need long-term monitoring. In this thesis, we present the design of a wireless telemedicine system using WLAN technology. [Continues.

Tile-Ippokratis: The Experience of an Ehealth Platform for the Provision of Health Care Services in the Island of Chios and Cyprus

Tile-Ippokratis proposed an integrated platform for the provision of low-cost ehealth services to citizens in southeast Mediterranean area (Island of Chios and Cyprus). The aim of the paper is to present the architecture, the design, and the evaluation results of this platform. The platform based on already evaluated state-of-the-art mobile ehealth systems and using wireless and terrestrial telecommunication networks is able to provide the following health care services: (i) telecollaboration and teleconsultation services between health care personnel and between health care personnel and patients and (ii) ehealth services for “at risk” citizens such as elderly and patients with chronic diseases (Island of Chios) and postsurgery patients (Cyprus). The ehealth systems supported capabilities for vital signal measurements (ECG 1 lead, SPO2, HR, BP, weight, and temperature), an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) infrastructure, and video conference, along with communication gateways for data transmission over ADSL, GPRS, and WLAN networks

Securing mHealth - Investigating the development of a novel information security framework

The deployment of Mobile Health (mHealth) platforms as well as the use of mobile and wireless technologies have significant potential to transform healthcare services. The use of mHealth technologies allow a real-time remote monitoring as well as direct access to healthcare data so that users (e.g., patients and healthcare professionals) can utilise mHealth services anywhere and anytime. Generally, mHealth offers smart solutions to tackle challenges in healthcare. However, there are still various issues regarding the development of the mHealth system. One of the most common diffi-culties in developing the mHealth system is the security of healthcare data. mHealth systems are still vulnerable to numerous security issues with regard to their weak-nesses in design and data management. Several information security frameworks for mHealth devices as well as information security frameworks for Cloud storage have been proposed, however, the major challenge is developing an effective information se-curity framework that will encompass every component of an mHealth system to secure sensitive healthcare data. This research investigates how healthcare data is managed in mHealth systems and proposes a new information security framework that secures mHealth systems. Moreover, a prototype is developed for the purpose of testing the proposed information security framework. Firstly, risk identification is carried out to determine what could happen to cause potential damage and to gain insight into how, where, and why the damage might happen. The process of risk identification includes the identification of assets those need to be protected, threats that we try to protect against, and vulnerabilities that are weaknesses in mHealth systems. Afterward, a detailed analysis of the entire mHealth domain is undertaken to determine domain-specific features and a taxonomy for mHealth, from which a set of the most essential security requirements is identified to develop a new information security framework. It then examines existing information security frameworks for mHealth devices and the Cloud, noting similarities and differences. Key mechanisms to implement the new framework are discussed and the new framework is then presented. Furthermore, a prototype is developed for the purpose of testing. It consists of four layers including an mHealth secure storage system, Capability system, Secure transactional layer, and Service management layer. Capability system, Secure transactional layer, and Service management layer are developed as main contributions of the research